He highlighted 1986's Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (y'know, the one where Kirk and co save the whales) as an example of how to balance big-screen spectacle with issue-led storytelling.

"We dealt with it in an engaging, entertaining way, but also in a very enlightening way," he said. "So the big screen can tell it just as well as on the small screen. It's just how you do it. It's the writer's talent."

Takei told us, though, that he's "very excited" for Trek to return to television with new series Discovery, since writer Bryan Fuller has "the opportunity now to deal more specifically with issues of our time".

"The potential for storytelling in the new TV version is going to be enormous and absolutely tantalising," he enthused. "I'm sure with Bryan Fuller at the helm of the TV series, it's going to have that Gene Roddenberry element."